ou hadn't done having snap in the gallery," said Dick.

"Why, we've been traypsing and rambling about, looking everywhere, and
thinking you'd done fifty deathly things, and here have you been at
nothing at all!"

"The stupidness lies in that point of it being nothing at all," murmured
Mr. Spinks.

The vicarage front was their next field of operation, and Mr. Maybold,
the lately-arrived incumbent, duly received his share of the night's
harmonies. It was hoped that by reason of his profession he would have
been led to open the window, and an extra carol in quick time was added
to draw him forth. But Mr. Maybold made no stir.

"A bad sign!" said old William, shaking his head.

However, at that same instant a musical voice was heard exclaiming from
inner depths of bedclothes--"Thanks, villagers!"

"What did he say?" asked Bowman, who was rather dull of hearing. Bowman's
voice, being therefore loud, had been heard by the vicar within.

"I said, 'Thanks, villagers!'" cried the vicar again.

"Oh, we didn't hear 'ee the first time!" cried Bowman.

"Now don't for heaven's sake spoil the young man's temper by answering
like that!" said the tranter.

"You won't do that, my friends!" the vicar shouted.

"Well to be sure, what ears!" said Mr. Penny in a whisper. "Beats any
horse or dog in the parish, and depend upon't, that's a sign he's a
proper clever chap."

"We shall see that in time," said the tranter.

Old William, in his gratitude for such thanks from a comparatively new
inhabitant, was anxious to play all the tunes over again; but renounced
his desire on being reminded by Reuben that it would be best to leave
well alone.

"Now putting two and two together," the tranter continued, as they went
their way over the hill, and across to the last remaining houses; "that
is, in the form of that young female vision we zeed just now, and this
young tenor-voiced parson, my belief is she'll wind en round her finger,
and twist the pore young feller about like the figure of 8--that she will
so, my sonnies."

CHAPTER VI: CHRISTMAS MORNING

The choir at last reached their beds, and slept like the rest of the
parish. Dick's slumbers, through the three or four hours remaining for
rest, were disturbed and slight; an exhaustive variation upon the
incidents that had passed that night in connection with the school-window
going on in his brain every moment of the time.

In the morning, do what he would--go upstairs,